On Mon, Mar 13, 2006 at 08:31:32AM -0500, John Nowak wrote:
> On Mar 13, 2006, at 2:43 AM, Anselm R. Garbe wrote:
>
> >If you requests a new feature, first make sure to propose which
> >feature we can remove(!) before adding a new feature, because we
> >feel better in removing stuff than adding new features,
> >honestly.
>
> Best thing I've heard in a long time out of an OSS project.

Actually this was not intented as insult or something. It simply
gives an idea of achieving good software quality after some
time. Often people request features which could easily replace
existing features (like tags replace not only pages/workspaces,
they even make attach/detach/sendtopage totally deprecated,
apart from the 'detached clients layer' and the 'pager') - the
introduction of tags is a good sample how you can making
software more powerful due removing features.

As for mutt. This is a great example of software where
developers didn't took care for quite a long time and applyed
any patch they got (I recently declined(!) several patches
implementing icon support for the bar and in general for
liblitz). And there appeared others who began mutt-ng and
exceeded the mistakes of mutt development to a maximum (this is
mutt + 10000 rejected patches blah blah blah, that you get 800
more features/options - nobody ever will ever be able to
remember). It is a long story, because I tried to influence th
mutt-ng people into the right direction, proposing, first remove
all crap before adding another crap ;)
Surprisingly they began it from scratch some months ago, but they
made the next mistake and are using C++ and autohell, oh dear...